The Santa Maria Airport has announced the first stage in creating an additional long-term fire retardant re-loading point, known as Pit 4, for the U.S. Forest Service Air Attack Base. While Pit 4 currently has new temporary equipment. Plans are in place to install a permanent facility that will accommodate the refilling more than one retardant dropping DC-10 at a time. Santa Maria Airport has been an air tanker base since 2007 and often dispenses more fire retardant than most others in the nation.
